


Shadows from the Past

by Small_Hobbit



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-21
Updated: 2013-05-21
Packaged: 2017-12-12 13:43:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/812224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Small_Hobbit/pseuds/Small_Hobbit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Robbie gets a phone call to say that Laura may need him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shadows from the Past

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Older Not Dead comm on LJ, proptathon 13: Surprise. For the prompt "Surprise from the past".
> 
> Once again many thanks to notluvulongtime my super fast beta.

Robbie Lewis heard his phone ringing when he was in the kitchen preparing the vegetables for dinner.  By the time he’d located the phone the caller had rung off. 

_One missed call.  Hathaway_.

Robbie’s first thought was that now that James Hathaway was no longer his sergeant he really should change the contact name on the phone to ‘James.’  His second thought was that it was unusual for the man to phone him, since he generally preferred to text.  He didn’t have time for a third thought, as his phone rang again.

“Decided I’d give you time to locate your phone before I rang back,” James said as soon as Robbie answered.

“Still the same cheeky sod.”

There was a deep chuckle and then, “You’d better come over here as soon as possible.  I think Laura is going to need you.”

“What’s happened?  Is she hurt?”

“No, she’s not been injured.  But I rather think she’ll have had a nasty shock.”

 

*****

When Robbie arrived he saw James sitting on a wall watching the police activity.  He started to walk towards him when he was spotted by one of the constables, “I’ll go and tell Dr Hobson you’re here.”

Shortly afterwards, Laura came out of the house with the policeman.  As soon as she saw Robbie she almost ran to him.  “I’m so glad you’ve come.  How did you know?”

Robbie put his arms round her and glanced at James over her shoulder.  James had stood up and was now nodding at him, mouthing ‘I’ll catch you later’ before walking away.

Robbie started to guide Laura further down the road. “Let’s go and find somewhere quieter, where you can tell me about it.”

There was a small grassy area with a couple of benches.  They sat on one of them and Laura began to talk.

“I didn’t think anything of it when I was called in.  Professor and Mrs Hastings, found dead in the study.  The police had been called in when the delivery man knocked at the house with a parcel and the door swung open revealing blood on the hall carpet.”

Laura stopped for a minute and Robbie waited patiently for her to continue.  Years of interviewing distraught witnesses had given him plenty of experience in knowing when to encourage someone to talk and when it was better to give them time to think and order their words.

After a couple of deep breaths, Laura continued.  “Professor Hastings was in his early seventies.  Mrs Hastings,” Laura’s voice shook.  “I didn’t know her as Mrs Hastings.  I knew her as Lydia Ransome, a research student when I was an undergraduate.  She had had some brilliant, but rather controversial ideas.  She married a visiting American doctoral student, someone called Clements.  When he returned to the States she spent half her time over there with him and the other half over here.  I used to follow her work and occasionally a group of us would meet up for a drink.  Her ideas became steadily more bizarre and we lost touch.  I’d vaguely heard that she’d got divorced, but I didn’t know that she’d married again.  So it was a total shock when I saw her dead on the carpet.”

Robbie held her close.  “They called someone else in to do the examination?”

“Yes.  I must have gone very white.  The sergeant who was overseeing the scene, I’m not sure of his name, asked me if I was okay.  When I said that I knew Mrs Hastings, he instantly said he’d get someone else to come in.”

“There’s more to it than that, isn’t there?”

“It was the way she was killed.  It was grotesque.  But I shouldn’t be saying anything to you, not really.”

“That’s okay.  I understand.  I’m no longer on the force.  The important thing now is to take you home.  I assume there’s no reason not to?”

“No, they don’t need me.  And if anyone does have any questions they know where to find me.”

Back home, Robbie made Laura a cup of tea and suggested that she go and lie down for a while.  She started to argue with him, but then agreed that she could listen to the new audio book that he’d bought for her, which would help take her mind off the recent events.

Once he was sure Laura was not likely to come back downstairs for a while, Robbie set to work.  He knew that he was no longer privy to the information the police had, but that didn’t stop him making his own enquiries as to what had so upset her.  His first thought was to phone James.

“You were very quick to contact me,” he said when James answered his call.  “How come?”

“Professor and Mrs Hastings had given a talk two days ago which I had attended.  From what was said, I’d concluded that Laura almost certainly would have known her in the past.”

“How did you know they were dead?”

“The mother of one of the girls on my course lives a few doors away from where they were living.  She’d ‘just happened’ to go outside when the police arrived.”

“So you thought you’d investigate?”

“I haven’t yet lost all my police instincts.  If you want more information I would suggest you look at their website.”

Robbie wrote the name of the website down and thanked James for his help. 

Later, having thoroughly perused the website, Robbie took another cup of tea up to Laura.

“I think I may have an idea of what you saw when you were confronted by Lydia Hastings’ body.”

“Oh.  How?”

“There’s a website.  With that, my time in Vice, and more years than I care to count dealing with death and the depravity of some human beings, I think I can hazard a reasonable guess of what took place.”

“I still can’t talk about it.  In fact, I don’t even think I want to.”

“I’m not expecting you to.  I just wanted you to know that I understand.”  He pulled her into a tight hug. 

“Thank you,” she said.  “Would it be awful if I said I’d like to go somewhere where there were normal people doing normal things?”

“Not at all.  The Swan does really good fish and chips on a Friday night if you’d rather not cook tonight.”

“Sounds ideal.  Give me time to have a shower and we can go.  Oh, and Robbie, thank you, for everything.”

 


End file.
